Hebrew Word Study – The Life – Ticheyeh – Hei Cheth Yod Yod Mem

Deuteronomy 30:3,19: “That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee. (19) I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:”

I hold it true, whate’er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most

Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Lord Baron Tennyson – In Memorial A.H.H. (Arthur Henry Hallam) Canto 27

I drive a disability bus and about a year ago I had a woman on my bus who removed her seat belt and then fell out of her seat.  I asked her repeatedly if she was hurt in any way and offered to call the paramedics. She kept insisting she was alright and no need for the paramedics. I later got a call from my manager who said this woman was suing the bus service. I found myself bearing a grudge against this woman for almost a year.  How dare she sue us when I did everything possible to watch over her. How dare she sue us when she was the one who took her seat belt after I made sure she had it on? 

To make matters worse she brazenly continues to use our bus service and the other day she got on my bus. Well, I tell you I did everything to make her life miserable. I personally put her seat belt on while reminding her over and over; “Don’t you dare take this belt off until this bus is stopped.  Do you hear me? Do you understand?  If you take this belt off while this bus is in motion I will stop this bus in the middle of the street…”  I continued berating her and all during the ride I would periodically ask her if her seat belt was still on or if she had taken her seat belt off.  I know it was cruel but I was going to make her pay for trying to make money off of our service. I knew she wasn’t hurt; she was just trying to play the system. 

Afterward, my conscience got the best of me and I had a time of repentance before my God but not after I gave God a piece of my mind as well. “God, why did you give me this dark side? Why did you create me to have this sense of vengeance?   Why did you allow me to acquire this sinful nature?  Then I quietly heard God say to me: “It was your choice to be mean to this woman.” I guess to really understand why we have a dark side.  We need to understand why God gave us a free will in the first place where we could choose between good and evil.

We say God can do anything, nothing is impossible with God.  Well, that is not true.  He cannot make a rock bigger than he can lift.  That would be a contradiction and he cannot perform a contradiction. He cannot go against His own nature.  He cannot sin. Sin is something that we do to offend Him, how can He offend Himself?  He is the cornerstone by which all morality is determined and measured. 

Let’s go back to a point before creation, where there was just God and nothing else. At this stage, God could not understand what rejection is like for there was no one or nothing that could reject Him. He could not love for love requires someone or something to love. God had the capacity to love He just needed something to love to express that love and experience the fullness and joy of love. 

Now the solution was simple, create something to love. He could create angels and other created beings and as their creator he could “program” them to love Him. There was a problem with that as was expressed by Johnny S. Black who wrote a song in 1915.  Johnny S. Black was a boxer and pianist who was rejected by his girlfriend when she ran off with another boxer. This inspired him to write a song entitled Paper Doll. The song began with “I’d like to buy a paper doll that I can call my own …’ and ended with ‘I’d rather have a paper doll to call my own than have a fickle-minded real live girl.” 

The pathos is expressed in this song is the agony of rejected love. Yet to declare that a paper doll would be better than a “real live girl” is ridiculous.  A paper doll cannot respond to your gestures of love.  A paper doll cannot show delight when you hug it, kiss it or caress it. It is that response of joy and the fact that you brought joy to someone that awakens the feelings of love within the one who extends that love, that great pleasure and happiness. Yet, to be that one that creates the joy of love in another carries a risk, a risk that when you give your passion, your heart to another person they could reject it and not accept your gift of love.  

Alfred Lord 1st Baron Tennyson searched for an understanding of this conundrum in his extended poem/eulogy In Memorial A.H.H. (Arthur Henry Hallam). This was written after his best friend, who was engaged to be married to his sister Emily, died suddenly of a stroke at the age of twenty-two. This poem was three years in the making and covered the many different moods of sorrow and grief over the loss of one that was loved.  He concludes that the fear, doubts, and suffering will find an answer and relief only through Faith in a God of Love and speaking not as the author himself but of the human race speaking through him, he writes those famous words in Canto 27: “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”   

God could not know the sorrow or grief of a lost love if He never had the opportunity to lose that object of love. He could not have known the joy of being loved if He did not take the risk of suffering the heartbreak over losing that love. Yet, as Lord Tennyson eloquently wrote, love is a risk and to know true love is worth the risk. God voluntarily chose to take the risk of love but the only way to do this was to give one particular feature of His creation a free will, the ability to choose or reject His love, His caring, His passion, and His heart. He voluntarily made Himself vulnerable so he could experience the true joy of love.  Love that is given and returned. 

In Deuteronomy 30:19 as the people of Israel entered the Promised Land God declared to His people that He has given them the choice between life and death and they were to choose life so that they and their generations will live.  Choose life to live? In Hebrew, the word for life used for choosing life is hachayim which is a noun in a plural form.  The word for life so that they may live is ticheyeh which is a verb in an imperfect (a continuous action) which is in a singular form. Jewish scholars teach that when the word for life is in a plural form it speaks of our physical life here on earth and our future life in heaven after we leave this physical body.  When life is used in a singular form it is a reference to one of our two lives, either life here on earth or our future life in heaven. What God was saying is that we have a choice. We can choose to return his love and thereby experience the joy of a completed love in this life and the next and God can experience the joy of a love returned or we can reject that love, bring heartbreak to God and not know a life with Him in eternity. 

Please note that this is not the complete study on this matter.  For the remainder of this study, you are invited to join our All Access subscription site where the entire study will be posted under our In-Depth Study entitled: “Why Did God Give Us A Dark Side?”  A new In-Depth Study is posted on our All Access Site every week. https://www.hebrewwordstudy.com

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